What is cradle?

Famous quotes containing the word cradle:

    The ancients adorned their sarcophagi with the emblems of life and procreation, and even with obscene symbols; in the religions of antiquity the sacred and the obscene often lay very close together. These men knew how to pay homage to death. For death is worthy of homage as the cradle of life, as the womb of palingenesis.
    Thomas Mann (1875–1955)

    Thou blind man’s mark, thou fool’s self-chosen snare,
    Fond Fancy’s scum and dregs of scattered thought,
    Band of all evils, cradle of causeless care,
    Thou web of will whose end is never wrought;
    Desire! desire, I have too dearly bought
    With price of mangled mind thy worthless ware;
    Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

    Tell me where is fancy bred,
    Or in the heart or in the head?
    How begot, how nourished?
    Reply, reply.
    It is engendered in the eyes,
    With gazing fed, and fancy dies
    In the cradle where it lies.
    Let us all ring fancy’s knell.
    I’ll begin it. Ding, dong, bell.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)